A resource is a source or supply from which benefit is produced. Typically resources are materials, money, services, staff, or other assets that are transformed to produce benefit and in the process may be consumed or made unavailable. Benefits of resource utilization may include increased wealth, meeting needs or wants, proper functioning of a system, or enhanced well being. From a human perspective a natural resource is anything obtained from the environment to satisfy human needs and wants. From a broader biological or ecological perspective a resource satisfies the needs of a living organism (see biological resource).
The concept of resources has been applied in diverse realms, including with respect to economics, biology, computer science, land management, and human resources, and is linked to the concepts of competition, sustainability, conservation, and stewardship. In application within human society, commercial or non-commercial factors require resource allocation through resource management.
Resources have three main characteristics: utility, limited availability, and potential for depletion or consumption. Resources have been variously categorized as biotic versus abiotic, renewable versus non-renewable, and potential versus actual, along with more elaborate classifications.
Read more about Resource: Economic Resources, Biological Resources, Economic Versus Biological Resources, Computer Resources, Land or Natural Resources, Labour or Human Resources, Capital or Infrastructure, Tangible Versus Intangible Resources, Resource Use and Sustainable Development, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word resource:
“Your kind doesn’t just kill men. You murder their spirits, you strangle their last breath of hope and freedom, so that you, the chosen few, can rule your slaves in ease and luxury. You’re a sadist just like the others, Heiser, with no resource but violence and no feeling but fear, the kind you’re feeling now. You’re drowning, Heiser, drowning in the ocean of blood around this barren little island you call the New Order.”
—Curtis Siodmak (1902–1988)
“The waste of plenty is the resource of scarcity.”
—Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866)
“Helping children at a level of genuine intellectual inquiry takes imagination on the part of the adult. Even more, it takes the courage to become a resource in unfamiliar areas of knowledge and in ones for which one has no taste. But parents, no less than teachers, must respect a child’s mind and not exploit it for their own vanity or ambition, or to soothe their own anxiety.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)